When Mark and I decided to set up a football blog it was only going to be for the duration of South Africa 2010... and here we are.
I've never attempted to blog in time with an event, and one thing I hadn't anticipated was the degree to which each day was a deadline. So the moment for my post reading Chile's formation in the light of Sir Thomas Browne's essay on the quincunx had passed within minutes it seemed of their knockout. A post on World Cup typefaces like this or this went by the way, as did a Stepford Footballers post, positing that one problem people have with the Spain midfield is that they're all physical and tactical clones of each other. I never linked properly to Robin Carmody's spectacular conspiracy theories regarding the CIA and the US team's progress, nor this post at Cold Calling. There was never a proper response to Laurie Penny's anti-World Cup diatribe, nor to the Orwell essay from which (with some ambivalence) we took the title of this blog. Mark did take Terry Eagleton to task at least over at k-punk.
On the other hand, it didn't matter: interesting pieces streamed in daily from the UK, New Zealand, Egypt and Holland. Ninety-five posts in thirty days?! Giovanni has already written about how enjoyable it's been to work collectively, which I absolutely second.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect though has been the quality and quantity of the comments. No trolling; not a mention of the Nazis. The comments were articulate, informed and interesting, and ended up producing not just new posts (DigitalBen and Dan) but new blogs. It's enough to make you think optimistically again about Web 2.0 potential. So, a massive thank you to all who commented.
And thanks also to everyone who linked: hopefully most are noted on the Return Pass sidebar – apologies to anyone whose link I missed.
Just two years until Poland/Ukraine 2012. See you then.
